Photography, short stories, accidental poetry. Memoir. Interpretations of an unanticipated bend in life. For all the unexpected hard, soft places that we have landed under the infinite vast skies of hope. This is our story…

Candid

He was the perfect husband. Well, almost perfect. We all have our little idiosyncrasies which we sometimes aren’t even aware of until we are well into a relationship with another human being. To be candid, myself equally idiosyncratic.

It was a balmy summer Saturday evening and we’d decided to leave the dinner dishes until morning. Fast into the night, in a deep sleep, I awoke with a start to a booming crash coming from the direction of the kitchen. Thinking surely it must be a dream, as Brian lay sleeping soundly by my side, I listened more intently. More crashing, clanging, shattering, and chaotic noise now. Me, being blind in one ear, thought certainly, he must hear this senseless noise. I woke him up with a shake.

What’s that noise? Don’t make him think you’re too afraid.

What noise?

That crashing sound! Don’t you hear it? In my calmest of voices.

He listened. Oh that? I don’t know, go back to sleep.

That’s a little crazy. Said I. Something’s out there, we have to go check to see what it is! I mean, you have to check to see what it is! Forget calm.

Oh okay, I’ll go look. He said.

I lay on my back, eyes fixed on the charchoal ceiling, afraid to blink. I wait. I wait.

Snore.

Courageously, I pull the covers back.

Like the NC Ninja that I am, I tiptoe down the hallway.

Sluethlike, no flashlight in hand.

Detective in me, I flip the kitchen switch.

Oh My God! I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life!

BRIAN! BRIAN! HURRY UP!

There are four raccoons in the kitchen sink! Hollering now.

What did you say?

I said… Never mind!

Faster than Usain Bolt, I arrived back in the bedroom nearing a full state of panic.

Holy crap! Okay, I’ll go look!

Holy sh%t four of them!

A mother and three kits wreaking havoc with the dishes and pans we left in the sink! Brian yells.

Brian! What are we going to do?!

How are we going to get them out of here?!

And…

How did they get in?

I sure as hell don’t know. His reply.

Brian, look at the claws on them! More like talons. I’m going outside until you figure it out.

Bold as brass, like they owned the bank, not raising an eyebrow, they didn’t even look at us. All four of them just kept doing what they came to do; party hearty, lick the plates clean, trash and crash the place. For all I knew those masked marauders had plans to call it home.

The kits were actually kind of cute.

As I took refuge outdoors where it was, ironically, relatively safe, I heard the great commotion of Brian bravely saving the night. Turned out it was no easy task. He had to target old Mom first and she was a stubborn one. Brian was at it for some time and I worried for him. Not as in worried enough to go in there and help, but enough to relieve any guilt I may have felt. To be candid once again, fear trumps guilt. Brian took broom and shovel in hand and with his baritone voice, valiantly shooed the unexpected visitors out of our humble abode.

As you can imagine the place was a shambles when the family of four had finally departed. Shattered glass, pots, pans, plates, cutlery brooms, shovels strewn about everywhere.

We cleaned most of it up, and crawled back into bed, drained of adrenaline and wondering who would believe this tale of woe. We wondered, for that matter, who we would dare to tell it to.

By the way, I was to learn, after some elbow turning, of one small missing pane of glass from the hallway door, just the right size for raccoon entry and exit. After all was said and done, Brian told me he’d removed it earlier that day but hadn’t gotten around to replacing it.

Idiosyncrasies; perhaps I should’ve washed the dishes or noticed the missing pane or even replaced it. Maybe Brian could’ve replaced the glass pane or cleaned up the kitchen.

At any rate, we had many a belly laugh over those raucous raccoons and without them there would be no memory and certainly no story for the telling.